Niche sports ponder futures
Prep cycling, bowling among activities that weigh sanctioning.
Since its inception in 2010, the Colorado High School Cycling League has provided athletes around the state the chance to compete in mountain biking. The league has since burgeoned to more than 1,400 participants — a growth that has continually spurred a debate among its constituents as to whether the sport could, and should, be sanctioned by the Colorado High School Activities Association.
“We talk about joining CHSAA every year,” said Kate Rau, the league’s founder and executive director. “If the kids, families and coaches want it, and they think that being sanctioned by CHSAA would be a benefit, I’m totally open to that. But we’re our own production anyways.”
Rau’s “but” sentiment epitomizes the climate around many nonsanctioned high school sports leagues in Colorado.
While the interest in activities such as mountain biking, bowling, climbing and rugby has grown — swelling membership over the past decade — those athletes still find themselves without CHSAA sanctioning and the financial backing and school support that come with it.
Sanctioned sports are funded largely by the school, which pays for equipment, fields and coaching stipends, among other expenses. Plus, CHSAA is in the process of making its sanctioning process more stringent. Add in shoestring athletic department budgets that have also hampered efforts by nonsanctioned sports to join the association, and change is unlikely.
Nevertheless, organizations such as the cycling league, the Colorado High School Bowling Foundation and more have developed their own sense of community in order to not just survive, but thrive. That community is rooted in the fact that for high school athletes, a chance to compete is a chance to compete, no matter what administrative umbrella it falls under.
“Either way, bowling’s still bowling,” said Nicole Monte, the 2016 Colorado High School Bowl-
ing Foundation girls state champion from Grand Junction Central. “You can categorize it as a CHSAA sport, or a club, or neither. So long as there’s a league, and there’s good competition, it’s still going to be a great opportunity for high school athletes.”
And with these nonsanctioned leagues comes a bit different, albeit still meaningful, sense of school pride that makes leaders such as Rau wonder whether it’s even worth trying to get sanctioned.
“Lacrosse, it took them like 20 years to become a CHSAA sanctioned sport (in 1998-99),” Rau said. “So this is something that works from the grassroots, and we’re looking a little bit at how those other sports became Chsaa-sanctioned sports to get a feel for what that process looks like. Right now, we’re definitely continuing to build toward that, but as we do so, we’ve realized it’s working great running it on our own, too.”
A changing process
CHSAA has added just one sport since the turn of the century — hip-hop dancing — although assistant commissioner Bethany Brookens noted that over the past five to 10 years, the association’s Equity Committee heard sanctioning pitches from rugby, badminton and ultimate Frisbee leagues, among others.
Those leagues were trying to get their sport to a vote by the Legislative Council, where, per CHSAA bylaw 5000.1, the council would weigh a variety of factors (a membership survey gauging interest, Equity Committee recommendations, geographical concerns, availability of facilities, availability of officials, cost and safety/liability) in determining whether to send the sport to the Board of Directors for approval of a one-year pilot program, which is the first step toward getting sanctioned.
But no sport ever got in front of the Legislative Council in that time, largely because no sport ever had bona fide backing from member schools and their respective leagues. As recently as April, the council refused to consider boys volleyball — which was seeking sanctioning for a third time — and a trial run of girls wrestling tournaments last winter has yet to produce tangible results. (CHSAA sanctions 27 sports.)
Brookens said the lack of support for nonsanctioned sports is, in large part, due to concerns about Title IX compliance — “each school has to ponder that question very carefully before they add a sport,” she said — as well as cost.
“That’s what we’ve heard when it comes to adding new sports — the schools are already stretched to their limits, and they can’t afford to take on any new sports,” Brookens said. “That’s a lot of the reason why these new sports haven’t been able to gain any traction with leagues, either.”
In an effort to add more clarity to the process, Brookens is spearheading a bylaw amendment that will be voted on by the Legislative Council in January. It would add several layers to the application process, starting with the requirement that CHSAA member leagues — not the nonsanctioned leagues themselves — must bring forward proposals for new sports.
From there, the sport would undergo an initial pilot year, followed by a second pilot year in which the sport would have to present to an array of CHSAA committees before being voted on by the Board of Directors and then being brought forth as a bylaw proposal to the Legislative Council.
“It’s a much more in-depth process, but I also think it’s very clear and consistent and easy to understand so that schools, leagues and districts do know what they’re getting into once they’re looking to propose the addition of any activity,” Brookens said.
Paths to growth
Regardless of CHSAA’S process, however, the bottom line is that many large-scale, nonsanctioned sports such as the cycling league realize sanctioning will always be a longshot so long as high school athletic department budgets remain tight.
But the fact remains that interest in some CHSAA sports is far exceeded by some nonsanctioned sports.
The participation in Rau’s league (73 teams) dwarfs that of sanctioned skiing (15) and sanctioned field hockey (14), as do the number of teams in the bowling foundation (50), the Colorado High School Climbing League (more than 40) and Rugby Colorado (more than 40).
That growth has come despite hit-or-miss support of these leagues and their teams at local high schools, where word of mouth often builds teams.
“There’s still a lot of schools in the state, unfortunately, that don’t really support their mountain biking team or any nonsanctioned sports regardless of how many of their kids participate,” said Scott Burcar, Golden High School’s mountain biking coach.
Golden’s team is an official school club and has consistently been one of the top teams in the cycling league since Burcar started the program seven years ago. The program exemplifies how nonsanctioned sports have the ability to become just as intertwined into their school’s culture as sanctioned sports are.
After starting with 13 participants the first season, the team has built up to 61 members — by comparison, the Golden football team has 81 total players — thanks to a network of passionate riders, a mini-course Burcar carved into the wild land next to campus and buy-in from administration and parents.
Each rider, from the most competitive to the student with autism who joined the team this fall, reaps the rewards of that network.
“The thing about the league is it involves a ton of volunteering adults out on the trails, some of whom are parents and others are community members who have joined on with the team,” Burcar said. “We had two parents step up and say, ‘We’ll take (our autistic rider) on, and we’ll be his personal chaperone and we’ll ride with him at practices and races.’ ”
Funding for the leagues comes from many sources — donations, player fees and even sponsorships — while scholarship money — financed by sponsors and fundraising at the league level — is also awarded in several nonsanctioned sports.
“We think we have the financial part down, and because of the low cost and the rapid expansion of teams (from 12 in 2003), we keep getting more interest each season,” said Wendy Whatton, state administrator for the bowling foundation. “Now, we’re focused on getting more involved with schools and trying to get more schools to recognize us.”
Another smaller, yet growing, nonsanctioned sport is beginning to find a foothold. John Westfall got permission from the St. Mary’s administration and the Board of Directors of the Colorado Springs school to start a competitive shooting team this year, the first such high school team in the state.
Westfall’s co-ed roster is already up to 17. He estimates there will be 15 to 20 schools with a team within the next few years, and like larger, more established nonsanctioned sports, future growth will probably come through grassroots efforts.
“I don’t think CHSAA sanctioning would help — I’d like to keep them out of it,” Westfall said. “I do know we’ll need a governing body at some point, so as we’re working with some other people to get it into their schools, we’re keeping that in mind. But right now, it looks like we’ll go through our own means to grow.”
“Lacrosse, it took them like 20 years to become a CHSAA sanctioned sport (in 1998-99). So this is something that works from the grassroots, and we’re looking a little bit at how those other sports became CHSAA sanctioned sports to get a feel for what that process looks like. Right now we’re definitely continuing to build toward that, but as we do so, we’ve realized it’s working great running it on our own, too.” Kate Rau, Colorado High School Cycling League founder and executive director